Some people have a fear of snakes. That was a somewhat rational fear. And you could do something about it at least. Stay away from long grass and nature documentaries. Easy. Others have a fear of heights. That was manageable too. Avoid tall ladders. But how do you cope when your fear is something you can’t avoid? That you have no hope of staying away from? Being afraid of the sky, where are you going to go?

"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye

I was hoping against odds that Joaquin Phoenix would win this, but I'm happy with Sharlto Copley. In some sense, he was given a perfect vehicle to have a great performance because his character goes through a full transformation and Copley has to struggle through a whole host of different situations. The editing in the film made for a manic story, but it also made for an over sized acting challenge because the new situations facing his character are changing how his character perceives the world. It's a fascinating performance since at the beginning his character is a vessel to the order, but the film is a thorough breakdown of that artificiality.

Often times when a film is about a character making changes, it only shows some steps of the transformation. I watched The Godfather recently again and was impressed when Al Pacino's Michael Corleone started to flirt with joining the mob by doing the restaurant killing, but there was a severe transformation only available offscreen after he came back from Italy and intigrated himself as the Don. The Michael Corleone who watches his new wife die by a car bomb and the one who approaches Kay after a couple years are distinctly different. The film wants you to assume the death hollowed out his emotions, but he repressed his feelings for over a year before going back to Kay. There is major development in that process, but yet that kind of time span difference is commonly accepted in great roles.

I give credit to District 9 for trying to fully exhibit the transformation and I reward Sharlto Copley for making every step believable. It's especially great considering he had little acting experience beforehand.